DONALD Trump’s tariff tantrums – those economic Molotov cocktails lobbed with the finesse of a Wetherspoons pamphleteer – did not so much collide with financial markets as douse them in petrol and strike a match. Here was a man who, with the bravado of a Del Boy hawking counterfeit Rolexes at a car boot sale, touted trade barriers as the path to national revival. The result? Not rejuvenation, but a haemorrhage: $6 trillion evaporated, as though siphoned into the offshore accounts of his vanity, with Apple’s $600bn nosedive serving as a garish monument to the folly. One might call it a masterclass in self-immolation, were it not so drearily predictable.
Trump’s riposte to this debacle? A pantomime of delusion so grandiose it would make Liz Truss’s “growth plan” look like a Treasury white paper. As markets convulsed, he crooned to investors about “windfalls”, as if financial calamity were merely the opening act of a get-rich-quick scheme. Corporate barons and economists – those dour custodians of spreadsheet reality – promptly sounded the alarm, spurring the administration’s swift climbdown. The tariffs, save those aimed at China (a bone tossed to his nativist gallery), were shelved. Thus did the “master negotiator” fold like a cheap suit, exposing himself not as a titan of resolve but a lackey genuflecting before the market’s altar. So much for the art of the deal; this was the art of the U-turn.
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The saga reeks of historical farce – the sort that leaves one yearning for the subtlety of a Black Wednesday re-run. Consider, if you will, Liz Truss’s 49-day spree of unfunded tax cuts, a venture so economically literate it made The Beano’s Numskulls look like the OBR. Both episodes lay bare an immutable truth: politicians may prance about in the costume of power, but let them dare rattle the cage of capital, and they will be swiftly reminded who holds the leash. Trump’s bluster, like Truss’s, collapsed not with a bang but a whimper – a humiliating lesson in the futility of defying the City’s high priests and their spreadsheet commandments.
And here we reach the crux: Trump, that gilded caricature of excess, may occupy the Oval Office, but he governs as a lickspittle to the oligarchy.
His premiership is less a democratic project than a symptom of capitalism’s end-stage decadence. To witness this spectacle – the retreats, the contradictions, the naked fealty to wealth – is not to observe an anomaly, but the inevitable culmination of a system where democracy is but a pantomime horse for plutocracy. Last week did not unveil a revelation so much as affirm a weary truth: in Westminster’s shadow, the golden calf still holds court.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
AN interesting and illuminating fact is emerging from Wales: support for independence is rapidly increasing. A few years ago it was static at around 20% but it now polls at 41%, whereas Scotland has stalled around 50%. The difference is that Welsh indy has remained united and the Scottish campaign has not.
READ MORE: Robin McAlpine: Why support for independence is surging in Wales
The keynote is “unity of purpose” as the independence party Plaid works closely with All Under One Banner Wales and YES Cymru; gaining support from other political party members and none. At Holyrood, SNP problems are obviously not due to their progressive policies, as election after election proves. In truth, they have been in office too long without gaining their main object of independence!
To further galvanise indy support in Scotland, it’s now time for the SNP to cut out arrogant back-biting and work seriously with all other YES indy campaigners including Alba.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore
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